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Eaton Centre to open 364 days a year in 2013

Shopping goes secular: Toronto’s Eaton Centre will be open for business 364 days a year in 2013, including on Easter Sunday.

Thousands of people crowd the Eaton Centre for last-minute shopping on Dec. 23, 2009. Christmas Day will now be the only day of the year that the Eaton Centre willl remain closed; it will be open for business on Easter Sunday in 2013. (Darren Calabrese / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

By Francine KopunBusiness Reporter

Tues., Oct. 30, 2012

The Eaton Centre announced Tuesday it will open for business on Easter Sunday, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar.

“Given the multicultural nature of the city of Toronto, many view the current religious holidays as secular,” said Meredith Vlitas, senior marketing director of the Eaton Centre.

The decision to remain open on Easter Sunday was made after extensive research and consultation, she said.

“We really wanted to make sure that we had a very clear opinion from Cadillac Fairview customers and tenants.”

The Eaton Centre will remain closed for one day only: Christmas Day, Dec. 25.

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Churches that fought Sunday store openings have mellowed in their approach, but remain opposed to the idea of extending shopping hours, saying it erodes family life and community.

“The whole idea of a day of rest or a Sabbath, whether it’s the Christian faith or any faith, is to take a break, retreat and focus on what’s really important — the people in our lives, those who are close to us, those we love,” said Neil MacCarthy, director of communications for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto.

MacCarthy said Easter Sunday is one of the holiest and most joyous days in the Christian calendar and is observed even by Catholics who no longer attend mass weekly.

He said the quiet that a common day of rest brings is precious and increasingly rare.

The Eaton Centre announcement comes as Toronto City council grapples yet again with the divisive issue of holiday retail hours, a subject it tackled in 2006, 2008 and 2010, without success.

The result is a confusing patchwork of holiday retail hours across Toronto.

Five shopping districts in the city that are designated as tourist attractions are permitted to operate every day of the year, including Christmas, if they choose: the Eaton Centre and the Bay; Queens Quay West; the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area; the Bloor-Yorkville Business Improvement Area and the Distillery Historic District.

There has effectively been a moratorium on designating more areas as tourist attractions since 2006, when responsibility for setting retail hours locally was transferred from the province to the City of Toronto.

The result is that retailers in neighbouring communities have different holiday hours and businesses in obvious tourist attractions like Greektown on the Danforth and The Beach on Queen Street East have to stay closed on holidays, leaving the Eaton Centre to draw tourists and locals.

Square One in Mississauga operates on Labour Day and gets 100,000 shoppers from a 24-km radius, but Yorkdale mall is closed.

“I lose out to my 905 competitors,” says Anthony Casalanguida, general manager, Yorkdale, which is owned by the same firm as Square One. He said retailers should be able to decide for themselves whether or not to remain open. He points out that although there was a lot of opposition to Sunday shopping, Sunday has become one of the busiest days of the week for retailers since it was legalized in 1992.

“People are acclimatized to it.”

A report compiled by Toronto city staff suggests Toronto residents are opposed to extending holiday shopping.

A telephone survey of 500 Toronto households, conducted by Environics Research Group between October and November 2011, found that 45 per cent of respondents agreed retail stores should remain closed on major holidays. Thirty-eight per cent agreed retail stores should have a choice to open on any holiday.

Among 7,846 respondents to an online City of Toronto survey conducted between November 2011 and July 2012, 68 per cent felt retailers should not be allowed to open on Easter Sunday.

Across Canada, there is no restriction on retail business hours on holidays in Saskatchewan, Alberta British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, according to the report, the first to take a comprehensive look at holiday shopping hours across Canada and in Southern Ontario.

In central and eastern Canada, retail businesses are required to close on public holidays, but with numerous exceptions.

The report recommends retailers in Toronto remain closed on five public holidays: New Year’s Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day. It recommends giving retailers the choice to open on Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day and Thanksgiving Day, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Mary Fragedakis, city councillor for Ward 29 (Toronto-Danforth) and a member of the city committee examining the issue, said more than 5,000 Torontonians, representing about 67 per cent of all respondents, voted against changes to the city’s current holiday shopping rules during the city’s online consultation.

“Even many non-Christians like the time that Christmas, Easter and other holidays affords them for getting together with family and community,” she wrote in an email response to questions.

John Kiru, executive director of the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas, calls the existing legislation a “dog’s breakfast.”

“I think in a city billed as the world’s most ethnically diverse city, not all of us follow the same traditions. As such, I think it’s unfair to impose these sorts of archaic restrictions on everybody.”

Union leaders and workers representatives are opposed to stores opening on any of the nine legislated holidays.

“This is not essential services, this is shopping. Really, it’s only nine days of the year that you’re trying to carve out some space for people to not work, to be paid and be able to rest,” said Deena Ladd, co-ordinator of the Worker’s Action Centre.

Action on the city staff report has been deferred to Nov. 8.

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